“People keep accusing me of being a rioter,” said Mothin Ali, Green Party councillor for Gipton and Harehills in Leeds.
It is true that he was there on Thursday night when a police car was overturned, projectiles were thrown at riot police and a double-decker bus was set alight in a night of unrest sparked when police arrived to help social services take in children.
But far from being a rioter, it was Ali and other community members who stood in front of police to try to protect them, stopped people from throwing trash cans and crates on the fire and eventually collected water from nearby homes to put out the blaze.
Why did he put his safety at risk? “I don’t know,” he said. “This is my field. I didn’t want people to get involved when they shouldn’t. Throw a rock and end up with a 10-year prison sentence.”
“I’ve met some police officers over the years and I didn’t want them to get hurt. I figured that’s what a city councilor was supposed to do.”
Earlier this evening, Ali was accused of inciting online riots by far-right extremists, including Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, who claimed that footage showed the “newly elected councillor for the area rioting in Leeds tonight. There are even reports that he is out on the streets with them”.
Although many people saw subsequent images and videos of Ali protecting the community and giving fiery speeches to those gathered, some lies persisted.
On Sunday, a far-right demonstration was held in Gipton, a neighbourhood adjacent to Harehills. Between 20 and 30 people attended, many from outside Leeds, Ali said, but there were no problems.
The reason he was likely the target of online abuse last Thursday was that he was no stranger to the far right. “Tommy Robinson loves me,” he joked. “Some of the far right, I’m their pet.”
When he was elected to Leeds City Council in May, he was criticised for his explicit support for Gaza, eventually earning him racist abuse and death threats. MailOnline accused him of “provoking outrage” by delivering Allahu Akbar, a declaration of faith, at the end of his victory speech. He also said it was a “victory for the people of Gaza”.
“There were a lot of thanks, but everything else was lost,” Ali said. “Some right-wing newspapers just cut the last 10 seconds, with ‘he said Allahu Akbar, he’s the Gaza city councilor, what a despicable guy, what a bad guy.’ And because of the way I was dressed and the way I looked, I just fit the caricature.”
“After that it got really threatening. My phone started ringing every few minutes, it was like it was dead. [P-word]’die’ and ‘I’m going to kill you’. They started posting pictures of my kids and all that kind of stuff. I closed my social media. I deleted Twitter, I left Facebook.
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“I didn’t expect it,” he added. “I probably thought I would get some criticism afterward, but I never thought it would be this crazy. It was relentless, day in and day out. There was one incident where someone showed up at my house, someone slashed my tires, someone called the police and made death threats and asked about my safety.
“It’s just horrible, absolutely horrible. But people here know what I mean.”
As he walked through Harehills on Monday, four days after the disturbances, many people stopped to thank him for what he had done on Thursday night. Others came up to him to talk about the problems in the area that needed to be addressed.
He said there were immediate issues to address after more than a decade of Conservative government. “We need to be able to reach out to communities, people who are very isolated, bring them into the system[andsaytothem:’Lookthisisthevalueofvotingthisisthevalueofeducationtheschoolsarenotyourenemiestheteachersaretryingtohelpyou’BuildthatleveloftrustbecausethereisamassivelevelofdistrustAndwe’vegottomakesurethey’rewelcomeintothesystemnotforcedintothesystem”[etdeleurdire:«Regardezvoilàlavaleurduvotevoilàlavaleurdel’éducationlesécolesnesontpasvosennemislesenseignantsessaientdevousaider»IlfautcréerceniveaudeconfiancecarilexisteunniveaudeméfianceénormeEtnousdevonsnousassurerqu’ilssontlesbienvenusdanslesystèmeetnonpasqu’ilsysontforcés»[andsay‘Lookthisisthevalueofvotingthisisthevalueofeducationtheschoolsaren’tyourenemiestheteachersaretryingtohelpyou’BuildthatleveloftrustbecausethereisamassivelevelofdistrustAndwe’vegottomakesurethey’rewelcomedintothesystemnotforcedintothesystem”
But, in typical local councillor style, he said one of the biggest complaints was that bins were not being collected because of blockages in narrow streets. He pulled out a meme made from a photo taken by a local photographer, who described him as the “hero of Harehills”.
He said: “I think someone should have captioned it: ‘Nothing stops me on trash day’.”
